Too often, the Philadelphia school system makes
headlines because of student violence rather than achievement.
But a group of Penn Law students is trying to stem the violence
and encourage schoolchildren to resolve conflicts peacefully.

The student volunteers used mediation as a tool in their
efforts for Project PEACE, a government program begun in
Pennsylvania in 1999 after the mass shootings at Columbine
High School.

One of the participants, Marium Jabyn, LL.M.’07, a native
of the Maldives, spent four days last March offering mediation
training to students at James Rhoads Elementary School in West
Philadelphia. She didn’t know what to expect when she walked
into the classroom. When she worked with schoolchildren back
home, they were combative. So she worried that the Rhoads
students might not like outsiders telling them what to do.